Archived: Home First Haverhill

Updated 23 December 2016

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

This inspection took place on 21 and 26 October 2016 and was announced. The provider was given 48 hours’ notice because the location provides a domiciliary care service and we needed to ensure that somebody would be available at their registered office. The inspection was carried out by one inspector and an expert by experience. An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Before the inspection, the provider completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We reviewed the information available to us about the service, such as the notifications that they had sent us. A notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law.

During the inspection we spoke with nine people who used the service, three members of staff, the registered manager and one relative. We looked at three care plans which included risk assessments, guidelines, healthcare information and records relating to medicines. We looked at two staff files including recruitment information, training and induction records, and details of when staff were supervised. We also looked at quality audits, satisfaction surveys, minutes of meetings and complaints received by the service. We also reviewed information on how the quality of the service was monitored and managed.

Updated 23 December 2016

This inspection took place on the 21 and 26 October 2016 and was announced.

Haverhill Home First is a domiciliary care service who provide short-term re-enablement packages to people in their own homes. At the time of our inspection there were 27 people using the service. The service shares a registered manager and additional resources with two other Home First services in the area.

There was a registered manager in post although the service is not required to have one and the day-to-day management was handled by two team leaders. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

The service took a robust and thorough approach to keeping people safe by completing a comprehensive risk assessment prior to commencing a package of care. Assessments of people’s mobility, environment and medicines were carried out to identify risks and implement suitable control measures for staff to mitigate them. The service created a person-centred plan based on outcomes and goals for re-enablement, which provided a consistent method for staff to work to when delivering care. Rotas and the allocation of visits were managed effectively to enable staff to get to people on time and spend the correct amount of time providing their care and support on each visit. While there had been difficulty recruiting to the service which had resulted in some staffing shortages, the service utilised resources creatively to ensure that people always received care and were not placed at risk.

The service worked closely with other professionals as part of people’s re-enablement and were able to contribute effectively towards supporting people with their healthcare needs. If people required assistance with taking their medicines then they received this support from trained and competent staff who managed their medicines safely.

Staff received a wide range of training to undertake their duties effectively and were able to demonstrate how this training was put into practice. The staff team was experienced and skilled and demonstrated a strong commitment to providing positive outcomes for people. They were provided with regular supervision and performance reviews which encouraged them to share views and reflect upon their practice. They understood their roles and responsibilities and were knowledgeable about the ways in which people gave consent and how the Mental Capacity Act (2005) was applied in practice. The staff we spoke with demonstrated a caring attitude and understood how to treat people with dignity and respect. Staff meetings were held fortnightly and provided an opportunity for the team to meet and discuss issues affecting the service. New staff received a full induction into the service, and robust recruitment procedures were in place to ensure they had the skills and experience necessary for the role.

There were robust processes in place for monitoring quality and identifying improvements that needed to be made across the service. The management, leadership and culture within the service was empowering, transparent and consistent, and we found the overall governance and organisation of the systems used in the delivery of people’s care to be well managed and implemented at all levels.